Jake
Andy didn’t call me, and I didn’t call him.
Four weeks passed. Very soon after leaving the cottage, I started work at Neverware. I’d been so desperate for a distraction, I’d flown to San Jose on Sunday, two days after Andy’s dad dropped me off at my house. By Tuesday, I was working a ten-hour day at Neverware. Talk about making your head spin.
The company was cool though. I got my own desk in an open office space with about a dozen others. I received my own stapler, pens, notepads, and Post-its from office supply. I got a desktop computer with two monitors.
I went through two days of training with the guy who was currently maintaining the code on the product database system I was taking over. He showed me all the modules and how they were structured and what they looked like on the user end and on the shipping and fulfillment end. He showed me a couple of case studies of how they’d added features and made adjustments for new clients who’d bought the database system. After that I was on my own with eighty bug reports in Java, two new clients coming on board, and a baseball-sized lump of terror in my gut.
But after the first two weeks, one hundred and three bugs successfully closed, a handle on new incoming ones, and a client meeting under my belt, I realized I really could do the job. Meanwhile, it was nice to go to lunch with Sierra, even if all she wanted to talk about was her upcoming wedding. And there was a group of about ten Neverware peeps who went out for drinks on Friday nights.
I was living with Sierra for the time being, sleeping on the sofa in her one-bedroom apartment. It’d been fun for the first few days and then not so much. As much as we got along as brother and sister, the quarters were too close, and I wasn’t in the friendliest of moods. She’d decided that after she and Tom got back from their honeymoon, she was going to move into his condo in Palo Alto, and I could take over her apartment. I honestly didn’t care one way or the other. About much of anything.
Outwardly, everything was good. But there was a black, empty space where my heart had once been. Being a contrary organ, it hurt a lot for something that had been removed. I would wake up three or four times a night on the uncomfortable couch and reach for Andy or imagine he was beside me, only to remember he wasn’t there. I even missed the cottage and the sound. I gladly would have burned my hands again for another two weeks with Andy there.
It didn’t take long for Sierra to get me to spill my guts. I told her everything. She fed me Chunky Monkey ice cream, promised me I’d meet the guy or girl of my dreams before I knew it, and threatened to get me involved in making favors for her wedding when I acted too mopey. So like the sad clown, I hid my pain.
It was a Friday night in mid-September when Andy called. It was late. Sierra’s fiancé, Tom, was out of town, so she and I had gone out with work friends for drinks, eaten Chinese, and come home around nine. We were almost done watching a movie when my phone buzzed. I looked at it, saw Andy’s name. I put the phone in the pocket of my sweatshirt, unanswered.
Sierra glanced over at me. “Is it him?”
I nodded, my gaze trained on the TV screen as if I actually gave a damn about the show. A moment later, my phone buzzed again. I had my volume turned on low, but you could hear the hum of the vibration setting. I didn’t bother to look at it.
Sierra paused the movie. I could tell by the look on her face that she was going into full Big Sister mode.
“You should answer it,” she said in a firm voice. “Jesus, it’s nearly midnight here. It’s like 3 a.m. in Massachusetts.”
“So?” She was right, it was late there. But if he was calling me in a moment of middle-of-the-night weakness, that was a good reason not to answer. Still. I felt a trickle of worry.
“What if he’s sorry?” she insisted. “What if he wants to get back together?”
I snorted. “We were never together in the first place, so kind of impossible to get back together.”
“You were together over the summer,” Sierra insisted. “At least hear what he has to say. What if his mom died or something?”
I glared at her. “Yeah, let’s go with that hypothesis. What are you, Occam’s insane aunt?”
The phone in my pocket, which had stopped buzzing during this conversation, buzzed again.
“Obviously it’s important.” She pushed my arm. “Answer it, Jake! You at least owe him that much.”
I wasn’t convinced Andy’s idea of important and my idea of important were the same, or that I owed him this. I’d been doing a bang-up job resisting the urge to call him. I knew I’d be undoing weeks of work if I answered the phone—like an AA member having that one drink. But now she’d gotten me worried and, worse, hopeful.
With a sigh that could have leveled empires with its sheer attitude, I took the phone out of my pocket and walked toward the kitchen to take the call.
“Hey,” I said as I walked to the sink. It seemed prudent to be next to a place where I could either puke or get hydrated. And I was also close to the oven, so I could stick my head in there if needed, another bonus.
“Jake?” Andy’s voice was shaky. “You picked up!”
He sounded surprised. Desperate. And maybe . . . drunk? There was a lot of white noise in the background. For a moment I thought he was on a subway or something. Then I realized it was wind. He was outside in a heavy wind. Was he walking somewhere on campus? I hoped he wasn’t driving if he was drunk.
“Hey, what’s up, bro?” I asked. Somewhere in my head, a warning bell sounded, but what it was warning me about wasn’t yet clear.
“I’m at Harvard,” Andy said, his voice too loud.
“Yeah, I know that. Have you been drinking?”
“Yeah. Pretty drunk. Hey, you should see it from up here. ’He campus. It’s fucking cold tonight. Yanno? But ’s pretty with all the lights.”
My heart stopped. I leaned against the sink to try to ground myself. His voice. I’d never heard Andy sound quite like that before. It sent a chill up my spine. He sounded like a ghost of himself, fragile, broken. “Andy, where are you?”
“Roof. At Hastings. ’S pretty far up. Way higher than Dunsbar. Steeper too. Hey, remember that stunt?”
“Yeah, Andy. I remember.” My tongue felt thick in my mouth. Fucking hell. He was definitely drunk, and on a roof? “What are you doing up there? Is anyone with you?”
“Huh?”
“Is someone with you?” I said, louder in case he couldn’t hear me over the wind. In my peripheral vision, I saw Sierra in the doorway.
He ignored my questions. His voice turned sad. “Miss you, Jake. Miss you so much. I don’t want this. ’S whole thing. I’m so stupid. I’m here, and it’s the best school ever. Right? Yanno? But I don’t want it. I don’t. Don’t know what to do, Jake. I hurt. So much. I thought it would get better, like pulling off a Band-Aid. ’S what I thought.”
“Yeah.” I closed my eyes. Oh God. At his words, my own pain burst to life, as hot and harsh and deep as it ever had been.
“Hasn’t gotten better.” It was barely a whisper. “’M so sick of feeling weak and confused and . . . Fuck. Jake.”
“I know. I know. Me too.” My heart split open for him. I’d never heard him sound so low. He was scaring me. “But listen to me, Andy. What are you doing on the roof, man? Huh? You said it was cold. Don’t you think you should go inside and get warm? Then we can talk some more.”
I looked up to see Sierra watching me anxiously, her arms crossed. I shook my head at her. It’s not okay.
And it wasn’t. Because I knew Andy. And I knew, didn’t I, that when Andy was stressed or upset about something, that was when he was at his craziest. In the past, I’d been there, been able to keep him from doing anything too radical. I wasn’t there now.
“Andy?” I repeated, when he didn’t answer.
“You should see this roof, Jakey,” Andy said with a manic grin in his voice. “’S really steep. Like crazy steep. But there’s a smaller building next to it, yanno? Maybe ten-foot drop? If I had my skateboard, bet I could make it. ’S in my room.”
I could hear that calculating tone in his voice, even though he was drunk. Drunk, risk-taking Andy terrified me.
“Listen to me,” I said as firmly as I could. “You’re not sober. You’re not thinking straight right now. You can’t judge distances and all that shit when you’re drunk. Do not attempt a stunt of any kind. Can you please go inside now? Would you do that for me?”
“’M tired, Jake.” Andy’s voice was so soft I barely heard him over the wind. “I don’t want to do this anymore.”
Like a movie in my head, I could see him, balancing on the peak of a steep roof on some old New England edifice, toes over the edge. He’d be shit-faced and wobbly. And that wind, God! It sounded hard enough that a gust alone could send him flying. He was so fucking insane.
He’d always had this death wish, I realized, something inside him that had its finger on the self-destruct button. He’d reined it in in the past, channeled it into daring feats that were, nevertheless, planned out and not as dangerous as they appeared. Now I heard the pain in his voice, the loneliness, and I knew it wouldn’t take much for him to take that step into thin air. Oh God, I knew it wouldn’t. Andy Tyler, daredevil.
Fuck, fuck, fuck. I curled up a little, pain seizing my gut. My fist clenched around the phone.
Sierra’s eyes were begging me, asking what she could do. I muted the call momentarily and whispered to Sierra. “Call Harvard. Tell them they might have a jumper and give his name. He said he’s on ‘Hastings.’ Probably his residence.”
With a sharp nod, Sierra left the room.
“Andy?” I had to keep him on the phone. “Hey, listen to me. Can you hear me?”
“Yeah.” The wind howled as if angry that he dared try to hold a conversation.
“Okay, just listen. You have options. All right? It doesn’t have to be the way you and your dad set it up. People change. Plans change. It’s as easy as . . . as sending an email of resignation to the school. Or changing your major. Or transferring to Stanford so we can be close.” Or coming out, I thought, but I didn’t want to freak him out even more. “Just think about it, Andy. If you don’t like what’s going on, we’ll fix it. Okay? We’ll fix it. That’s all.”
“But . . . what else would I do? If I left school now the only thing I’d be qualified for is a law clerk or maybe a little league coach. I can’t survive on fifteen dollars an hour!”
He sounded so anguished. Sometimes I really wanted to kill Mr. Tyler. His obsession with Andy’s future had given Andy a black-and-white, all-or-nothing perspective. I made myself stay calm though. What was important right now was getting Andy off that roof.
“Hey,” I joked. “Law clerks can be hot. And famous too. Remember that movie with Julia Roberts?”
“This is not funny, Jake!” Andy roared, tears in his voice.
Okay. So humor was not the right way to go. Got it.
“I’m sorry. Just . . . will you stop putting so much pressure on yourself? There are other things in life besides big degrees and money. Even if you did make fifteen dollars an hour, you’d be fine. Hell, come out and live with me in California and surf! Give yourself time to figure out what you want to do. I’ve got a job. I can take care of us for a while. But if you do something stupid right now, like ride your goddamn skateboard off that roof drunk, or take a header, you’ll be dead. Do you hear me? The end. And then we’ll never have the chance to work it out. Andy, please.”
I heard him breathing hard on the other end of the phone. When he spoke, his voice was softer. “Miss you so much. Miss being with you. God, Jake. Feels like someone ripped my guts out.” His teeth chattered, like he was shaking apart.
A sob caught in my throat. I swallowed it. Crying would be completely useless right now. I sank down so I was sitting at the base of the sink. “I know. Me too. God, Andy. I swear, I miss you so much it feels like I’m dying sometimes.”
“Everything, everything, everything is wrong, and it’s all so tangled up, and I don’t know how to change it or what else I’d do even if I could!”
“That’s fine! You don’t have to know that right now. Okay? We’ll look at one issue at a time. I’ll help you. Just . . . please, Andy.” My heart pulsed raw and open, right there. I had nothing left with which to hold on to him, so I had no choice. “I love you. God help me, I love you so much. If something happened to you, it would kill me too. So please, don’t. Go inside and we’ll work it out. You and me. The Andy and Jake Show.”
I heard him sniffling. “You’ll help me figure it out?”
“I will, yes, absolutely.” I nodded adamantly, as if he could see me.
There was a soft noise on the other end of the phone, maybe a sigh, but I couldn’t make it out over the wind. I could sense, though, that something had shifted. “Prob’bly is too far,” he muttered. I heard the scraping sound of footsteps over tile. He was walking across the roof. Oh, thank God. Just please don’t let him fall.
“I need you,” Andy said quietly. His voice sounded less frenzied, more in control.
“I can be there.” I sat up straighter and wiped at my eyes. “Let me book a flight. I should be able to get there by tomorrow.”
“No. Hang on.”
There was a sound that must have been a stiff window closing. And then the wind was gone. I shuddered with relief. Oh my God. I was covered in sweat. Maybe the situation over there hadn’t been as dire as it’d sounded. But I could swear I saw headlines like Student jumps to his death. And if that student had been Andy Tyler, would anyone really be surprised?
“Andy?” I prompted when he didn’t speak.
“Don’t book a flight. Maybe . . . maybe I’ll come out there. I dunno. Have to figure it out. But meanwhile, we can talk? You don’t hate me?”
“No! I don’t hate you. Of course we can talk,” I assured him. “As much as you want.”
“Only not now, because I’m going to be sick.” He moaned. I wondered what the hell he’d been drinking.
“Are you near your room?”
Over the phone, I heard the sound of sirens and footsteps on stairs. Andy panted, “Did you . . . call someone?”
I laughed. “Yeah, you crazy bastard. You about scared me to death. I swear to God, Andy, if you hurt yourself before I get my hands on you again, I will kill you.”
“Glad you still care, Jake,” Andy said quietly.
Then there were voices and the magical soundtrack of Andy puking his guts out.